The women rise

The three widows sat in a row onstage: vice-presidential aspirant Rep. Leni Robredo and senatorial candidates Risa Hontiveros (a former congresswoman) and Lorna Kapunan (a lawyer). Across from a sofa on which sat facilitator Ces Oreña Drilon were three other women candidates: overseas workers’ advocate Toots Ople (status: marriage annulled in 1999), who is running for the Senate; Princess Jacel Kiram (status: married), also running for the Senate; and Carmen Rita “Mitch” Monfort-Bautista (status: married), running for representative of the fourth district of Iloilo.

They were speaking to an audience made up largely of women, at a forum sponsored in part by the Women’s Business Council (WBC), the organization BPW Makati, and the TOWNS Foundation, called “Women Rising: Calling for a Woman’s Vote.” The sharing and exchange of views, said WBC president Chit Juan, is part of a series of meetings leading up to the elections, called “Voice of the Filipina Leader in Public Service.”

It was one of the most substantive, and also enlightening and entertaining candidate forums I have observed during this “silly season.” The questions focused on the rights of women and children, but also touched on important issues bedeviling the country, from poverty to unemployment, to abuse of women migrant workers, and on to such touchy subjects as divorce and abortion.

To be sure, each one had individual, indeed personal, issues to champion. Toots Ople, who has long been a lonely voice on the need to address the needs of overseas workers, said the “only” solution to the abuses faced by Filipino women workers abroad is to “stop sending them abroad.” But, she said, when she meets with women workers and warns them on the risks they face, they turn a deaf ear. Once, she met with women who had escaped from Iraq, definitely one of the more dangerous places on the planet. When she asked the women, most of whom were from Mindanao, why they had taken such a huge risk for work, they came up with a simple reply: “We also face violence back home, so we are used to the shooting, but here in Iraq at least we get paid in dollars.”

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Jacel Kiram had her moment in the spotlight when her father and his followers mounted an “expedition” (she called it a “return home”) to Sabah, in a frustrated effort to “reclaim” the island for the Sultanate of Sulu. In the fevered coverage of the events surrounding the “homecoming,” Jacel became an articulate spokesperson, despite the objections raised by her male relatives who thought it unseemly for a young woman to be speaking in behalf of the sultanate.

Her main advocacy, said Risa Hontiveros, is health—for women, children, families and the nation. At the same time, she said, the challenge facing Philippine society today is “to ensure that men fulfill their fair share of reproductive/domestic work.” She defined “health for Filipinos” as having “enough time for work, with time for relationships with loved ones, and leisure to pursue passions and potentials.” Of course, a large part of this concern centered on the Reproductive Health Law, but she prefers to broaden it to include universal healthcare, including affordable medicines and more PhilHealth benefit packages.

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Lorna Kapunan had a funny story to share about a speaking engagement the day before. As she entered the auditorium, she said, the guard greeted her thus: “Good afternoon, Secretary De Lima.” Leila de Lima, the former justice secretary, is also a senatorial candidate for another party (she sent a video clip to the forum), and so Kapunan, although put off, gently chided the guard: “If you see Secretary De Lima arriving, you should greet her as Attorney Kapunan.”

Saying that she “does not make promises,” Kapunan said she has focused her campaign on a “fight for our rights,” part of a general effort to “reclaim our human dignity.” Corruption is one of her targets, she said, adding that she hopes to get Filipinos out of their stupor of accepting corruption as “one of those things,” to lead them out of the culture of “learned helplessness,” and to get them angry enough to demand change in our institutions.

Leni Robredo decided to discard her prepared speech and to “tell a story” instead on her days as a young lawyer, first for the Public Attorney’s Office and then for the nongovernment legal education organization Saligan. She said that in their work with women victims of violence, she and her colleagues moved from legal education and paralegal training to organizing the women into self-help groups, then conceiving income-generating projects and skills training for them. “We realized that unless we addressed the economic needs of women, they would never be empowered enough to confront their abusers,” she said.

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Though they belong to different political parties, and thus champion different presidential contenders, the women achieved a marvelous symmetry of views—and this wasn’t just because they were being polite or ladylike.

To a woman, they agreed that procedures for annulment (“Call it what it really is—divorce!” exclaimed Kapunan) need to be simplified and made accessible to the poor. They supported the reproductive rights of women and youth, though Kiram expressed reservations about some aspects, citing Muslim custom. And they all expressed opposition to the legalization of abortion, with Hontiveros pointing out that an abortion “is not a painless decision for any woman.”

Despite the confusion and clangor of this campaign, I am actually excited about the potential presence of such outspoken, articulate, and yet also lighthearted women in the highest echelons of government. Women rising, indeed!